God please forgive me but this foetus in my stomach need not see the light of the day. So I thought while I signed the pregnancy termination and risk undertaken and then I laid dressed in the hospital theatre, clothed in the hospital gown and a shower cap. Clinging on to the bed sheet, I laid in fear. Although the anaesthetics made me not feel any pain but the cry of the baby in my womb that I was about to murder made my soul bleed. But really, if I didn’t, then how could I look at my strict and hypertensive clergy mother back in Nigeria who was the head of the catholic women wing for the movement against premarital sex and teenage pregnancy, how do I disappoint my professors by dropping out of my IVY league school in America that I got on scholarship, and to think that the boy who left me in this condition blatantly told me off when I told him that I was pregnant. I had a future of a better life to protect, so I thought. So I chose my life over that of the unborn baby,
At twenty one, my hands were already soiled, how could I have taken the life of my own first born. She could have been a smart girl with a lion heart like his stupid father, or perhaps an emotionally gullible Gemini with a dimpled smile and cute looks just like me, her mother. Every June 23rd, my instinct tells me that it’s the birthday of the child that could have been and every time I look at my baby niece, I feel him ask me why I did what I did to his cousin. Would I live with this guilt forever, would I see my first real child as the second knowing that someone was supposed to have come before him if not for me or who knows, maybe it’s him that’d return. I am scared.
I am scared, and ashamed of myself. How could I have paid for the murder of a part of me as I feel myself die more every day simply by the thoughts of it? These thoughts are killing me. What words do I use to describe my baby, “It”, “He” or “She”? , that’s how bad it is. I had no guts to even know the sex before I killed it. No guts to even smile to its goo-goo-ga-ga baby language, I didn’t give that baby a chance to play and get dirty with other mates and in his/her school clothes till I’d get mad at the dirt stains.
Well, let me explain, there’s no use making anyone see the million excuses why that Foetus (unborn baby), had to go. But I was young and scared in the light of what I shouldn’t have started, sex. The truth is, I’ve made my biggest mistake by letting my action invoke someone from heaven into my womb only to take it back almost immediately back to heaven again. I took a baby from its ending to another ending without letting it begin in this place of time and space. The truth is, I was so scared and unready to become a mother, the guilt and consequences of that fear, even till today is yet to disappear.
Now I am in a cross road of not being a able to give birth again, so the doctors says after over ten years now, who cares as having a husband is not even in my agenda. I swore to myself never to love any man again but at times I wish I had a child, preferably a daughter, one I could teach the tricks of the trade. Then I’d draw her closer to me with a guiding light, too bright for any mortal to take advantage of, like I was. Maybe someday I will, but for now, am stuck. Stuck with this marijuana, bottles of gin, a great career and my lesbian friends I can relate with. Loneliness, sin, guilt, fear and uncertainty is what I leave it, the consequence of aborting a part of me and my next generation.
Written by Uwaoma Eizu
youngizu@yahoo.com
These story reflects the message of life and our fight for it. However, the “me” and scenarios were fictitious, it does not reflect any known person as it’s just the creative imagination of the writer. All rights reserved.
Written By Uwaoma Eizu
For foundation 360
www.foundation360.hexavia.net
If you’ve ever come across any of the foundation 360 write –ups and have found them either interesting or motivating, then finally you can have the entire source in a book including this one in its complete version We have just made a collection of this and other short stories, books, motivation, facebook status and articles into 3 e-books for sale.
1. The Chronicles of Love 2. For the Love of Our Dying Nation 3. Wisdom in Words. To get the book or for further details, go to http://foundation360.hexavia.net/contact.php or call +2348035202891 // This is a social service package powered by the 360 team and the management of Hexavia Limited, they translate your ideas, product and organisation into a brand through qualitative services in Web| Graphics | IT and Logistics.
